Life

Youth

Abelard,
originally called 'Pierre le Pallet' was born in the little village
of Le
Pallet, about 10 miles east of Nantes, in Brittany, the eldest son of a minor noble Breton family. As a boy, he learned quickly,
being encouraged by his father, he studied the liberal arts and excelled at the art of
dialectic (a branch of philosophy), which, at that time, consisted
chiefly of the logic of Aristotle
transmitted through Latin channels. Instead of
entering a military career, as his father had done, Abelard became
an academic. During his early academic pursuits, Abelard wandered
throughout France, debating and learning, so as (in his own words)
"he became such as one as the Peripatetics." The nominalistRoscellinus of Compiegne was his teacher during this period.

The success of his teaching was notable, though for a time he had
to give it up, the strain proving too great for his constitution.
On his return, after 1108, he found William lecturing at
Saint-Victor, just outside the Ile-de-la-cite, and there they once
again became rivals. Abelard was once more victorious, and now
stood supreme. William was only temporarily able to prevent him
from lecturing in Paris. From Melun, where he had resumed teaching,
Abelard went on to the capital, and set up his school on the
heights of Montagne Sainte-GeneviÃ¨ve, overlooking Notre-Dame.From his success in
dialectic, he next turned to theology and
attended the lectures of Anselm at Laon. His
triumph was complete; the pupil was able to give lectures, without
previous training or special study, which were acknowledged
superior to those of the master. Abelard was now at the height of
his fame. He stepped into the chair at Notre-Dame, being also
nominated canon, about the year 1115.

Distinguished in figure and manners, Abelard was seen surrounded by
crowds â€” it is said thousands of students â€” drawn from all
countries by the fame of his teaching. Enriched by the offerings of
his pupils, and entertained with universal admiration, he came, as
he says, to think himself the only undefeated philosopher in the
world. But a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his devotion to
science, he had always lived a very regular life, enlivened only by
philosophical debate: now, at the height of his fame, he
encountered romance.

No sooner had he published his theological lectures (the
Theologia 'Summi Boni') than his adversaries picked up on
his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Charging him with the
heresy of Sabellius in a provincial
synod held at Soissons in 1121, they obtained through irregular procedures
an official condemnation of his teaching, and he was made to burn
his book before being shut up in the convent of St. Medard at
Soissons. It was the bitterest possible experience that
could befall him.

Disputed resting place/lovers' pilgrimage

The bones
of the pair were moved more than once afterwards, but they were
preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now are presumed to
lie in the well-known tomb in the cemetery of PÃ¨re
Lachaise in eastern Paris. The transfer of their
remains there in 1817 is considered to have considerably
contributed to the popularity of that cemetery, at the time still
far outside the built-up area of Paris. By tradition, lovers or
lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt, in tribute to the
couple or in hope of finding true love.

Philosophy

Philosophical work

The general importance of Abelard lies in his having fixed more
decisively than anyone before him the scholastic manner of
philosophizing, with the object of giving a formally rational
expression to received ecclesiastical doctrine. However his own
particular interpretations may have been condemned, they were
conceived in essentially the same spirit as the general scheme of
thought afterwards elaborated in the 13th century with approval
from the heads of the Church.

He helped to establish the ascendancy of the philosophical
authority of Aristotle which became firmly
established in the half-century after his death. It was at this
time that the completed Organon, and
gradually all the other works of the Greek thinker, first came to
be available in the schools. Before his time Plato's authority was the basis for the prevailing
Realism. As regards his so-called Conceptualism and his attitude to
the question of Universals, see Scholasticism.

Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed
greatest activity of philosophical thought. He laid particular
stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the
moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. His
thought in this direction, anticipating something of modern
speculation, is the more remarkable because his scholastic
successors accomplished least in the field of morals, hardly
venturing to bring the principles and rules of conduct under pure
philosophical discussion, even after the great ethical inquiries of
Aristotle became fully known to them.

Pope Innocent III accepted Abelard's Doctrine of Limbo, which
amended Augustine of Hippo's Doctrine of Original Sin. The Vatican
accepted the view that unbaptized babies did not, as at first
believed, go straight to Hell but to a special area of limbo, "limbus infantium". They would therefore feel
no pain but no supernatural happiness either (only natural)
because, it was held, they would not be able to see the deity that
created them.

Cousin's collection gave extracts from the theological work
Sic et Non ("Yes and No") which
is an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points culled
from the Fathers as a basis for discussion, the main interest in
which lies in the fact that there is no attempt to reconcile the
different opinions. Cousin's collection also includes the
Dialectica, commentaries on logical works of Aristotle,
Porphyry and Boethius, and a fragment,
De Generibus et Speciebus.

Theologia 'Summi Boni', Theologia christiana, and Theologia
'scholarium'. His main work on systematic theology written
between 1120 and 1140, and appeared in a number of versions under a
number of titles (shown in chronological order).

Abelard also left six biblical planctus (laments),
which were very original and influenced the subsequent development
of the lai, a song form that flourished in
northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Melodies that have survived have been praised as "flexible,
expressive melodies [that] show an elegance and technical
adroitness that are very similar to the qualities that have been
long admired in Abelard's poetry."